The scandal erupted in November 2017, a month after rape and sexual abuse accusations surfaced against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.

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At the time, Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter published the testimonies of 18 women claiming to have been raped, sexually assaulted or harassed by Arnault.

The Frenchman also ran the Forum club, a meeting place for the cultural elite and popular among aspiring young authors hoping to make contact with publishers and writers.

The two counts of rape involved one woman.

According to the prosecution, Arnault allegedly forced the woman - who was in a state of "intense fear" - to have oral sex and intercourse in a Stockholm apartment on October 5, 2011.

He was also accused of raping her during the night of December 2-3 the same year while she was asleep, but was acquitted on that charge.

The trial was heard behind closed doors to protect the victim, whose identity has not been disclosed.

In Sweden, rape is punishable by a minimum of two years and a maximum of six years in prison.

'Culture of silence'

Arnault has maintained his innocence from the start. He has been held in preventive custody since the end of his trial on September 24 and will remain in jail until the formal start of his sentence, the court said.

His accusers claim the Swedish Academy was well aware of his behaviour, and blame the institution for helping create a "culture of silence" that pervaded Sweden's cultural circles.

An internal Academy probe had concluded there were conflicts of interest between Arnault and the Academy, and found that several female Academy members and people close to them had also been harassed or assaulted by the Frenchman.

According to Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet, Arnault was born in Marseille in 1946 to Russian refugee parents. He arrived in Sweden in the late 1960s to study photography.

He had bragged about being the "19th member" of the Academy, and according to the internal probe, he leaked the names of Nobel literature laureates on several occasions.